The training of teachers in the United States of America

by Amy Blanche Bramwell; H. Millicent Hughes

The Harvard Annex for Women has been opened at Fay House, Cambridge. Professors and lecturers from the University give their lectures over again at the Annex for the benefit of the women students, who can thus go through the course for a degree, which, however, they may not receive, having to be content with a certificate. We were able to be there on Class Day, on which the students invite their friends to an “at home” in honour of the women graduates. At first all assembled in the library to listen to appropriate speeches, then they dispersed into the lecture rooms to talk to their friends, an arrangement which gave the English visitors opportunity to meet the various professors and lecturers. The women’s Class Day, however, fades into insignificance by the side of the men’s, which is the gala day of Cambridge. The morning is devoted to speeches by the students and professors, and in the afternoon and evening the seniors (those who graduate) have the opportunity of giving teas and “spreads,” to which they invite their friends. On the Tree of Liberty is hung the famous wreath, the flowers of which are scrambled for at a given signal, and dancing and other entertainments bring the day to a close. Commencement Day, at which the actual degrees are conferred, is held some days later.

From Boston we visited another famous college for women—Wellesley, which takes rank and is conducted on similar lines to those of Vassar and Bryn Mawr. It is quite out in the country, and has beautiful buildings and grounds of its own.

The Institute of Technology well repaid a visit. It is a most imposing institution, every opportunity being afforded in it for work of all kinds, chiefly, it is true, for scientific work (the laboratories and various departments being most splendidly equipped with apparatus), but almost any subject can be studied there. There are special courses arranged for those who are actually engaged in teaching. We also visited the Boston Normal and Rice Training School, Normal Art School, and the Latin High School. From Boston, we went to see the State Normal Schools at Framingham, Bridgewater Providence (Rhode Island), and the other Training Schools at Fall River and Pawtucket.

The fame of the Quincy Schools, near Boston, attracted us thither, and we spent a delightful morning listening to lessons in the primary and grammar grades of one of the best. It was of course a mixed school, and every class had a large room to itself with a continuous blackboard, all round the walls, of which constant use was made either by teacher or scholars. These blackboards are an essential part of school-room furniture in America, and without them a great deal of the teaching could not be carried on. The teacher begins at one end of the board facing the class, and can work right along the side of the room, thus being able to leave all her drawings, etc., unerased during the lesson. She can also send any or all of the children to the blackboard at once to work sums, write or draw. It was at Quincy that Colonel Parker (now at Cook County Normal School) began his work as school superintendent, and through him the Quincy methods of teaching attained an almost world-wide fame.

The little town of Milton, a few miles out of Boston, among the Blue Mountains, was also a place of interest. We there visited the Milton Academy, an endowed school, chartered as far back as 1798, and opened in 1807. It is a school for boys and girls, although there is only a boarding-house for boys. The Academy much resembles an English High School, in that it provides education for children between the ages of eight and eighteen, and has an upper and lower school. It is really a preparatory school for Harvard, the courses in the upper school being determined by the requirements for the Harvard entrance examination.

We asked the head-master as to the practical working of co-education in a school of that kind. He appeared to believe in it, and gave us an excellent opportunity of learning how the boys and girls themselves regarded it. The upper school had to write for ten minutes on some given subject, and on this morning the one announced was “co-education.” We were afterwards allowed to look at the papers, and were very much interested by them. About half the pupils expressed no definite opinion at all—many saying that as they had never been to a school on any other plan, they could not judge of the relative merits of mixed or separate schools. The rest, however, had fully made up their minds, some for and some against. Those who defended the system did so on the grounds of the higher standard of work resulting from the rivalry between the boys and girls, and of the good influence each had on the other—the girls making the boys gentler, while the boys’ admiration of courage tended to render the girls braver. The objections brought against it were, however, almost more interesting. Several boys objected, because they said they had to work harder than in schools for boys only, while some of the girls who did not want to take the Harvard entrance examination disliked the course of study rendered necessary by it, and would have preferred to take other subjects. According to one boy, “girls have so much more time than boys (not playing so many games), and therefore can easily get their lessons perfect”; and another bewailed the fact that when optional extra work was given out by the teacher, “the girls always did it, and so got more marks.” A more valid objection, perhaps, was that the school had no reputation for athletics, or outdoor games, as the girls took no interest in them. How far this was really true in this particular case, we could not judge; but wherever we went, we were struck with the fact that American girls do not play or get enough exercise in the open air. This dislike to outdoor exercise and fondness for hot rooms (their rooms are kept ten to fifteen degrees higher in temperature than we consider healthy in England) are probably the chief causes of the delicacy and excitability of American women.

One day was spent at Concord, so long the home of Emerson, Hawthorne and Thoreau, where one realized as never before what their lives and writings have meant as educating influences in America. The life of Concord seems to be in the past, and it appears as if quietly awaiting the return of those great presences which made it famous. The house once occupied by the Alcotts is now in the possession of Commissioner Harris, of Washington (Head of the Bureau of Education), who spends a part of each year there. The Concord schools are good, and a new scheme, by which all children within a radius of ten miles are collected in conveyances and brought in to school, has just been adopted. This plan does away with the necessity for district schools, which are rarely efficient.

From Boston we started westward, and first stopped at Syracuse. This is the seat of a Co-educational University, placed on the top of the highest hill, the view from which is very fine. Besides the ordinary departments, it has one for music and one for painting, which have both been carefully organized. There is also an observatory.

By way of Oswego, Niagara and Detroit, we reached Ann Arbor, the seat of the Michigan State University, which is the centre of the life of the town. It is co-educational and non-residential, the students boarding with the people of the place. It appeared that nearly every house took in students, usually only to lodge, but other houses opened their doors at meal times, and it was a curious sight to see students and others wending their ways three times a day to certain houses where they had arranged for meals.

The University has many departments, including those of law, medicine and dentistry. Two graduates of the last were Englishwomen, who are now practising in Chicago.